Re: That Praxian Animism

From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_...>
Date: Wed, 3 Oct 2001 16:43:02 +0100 (BST)

> From: paul_at_...

> I had thought about chnaging to a sort of effect number idea for
> contests (the person who succeeds by the greatest margin wins), but
> thought this might load things too far in favour of masters, and at
> the moment its quite nice that the underdog (or under capybara as
> Wulf points out)has a chance.

I once toyed with a "compromise" system that tried to iron out some of the non-linearities in the contest system, but it required too much mid-game arithmetic. (Which I'm not fond of myself, and might lead to Robin taking out a contract on me, given his fondness for that particular mathematical art. <g>) Basically you have a choice between a bias in favour of the "master", or a bias against, without performing yet more radical surgery on the (poor, innocent, unsuspecting) game system.

> I think Alex's (Alex Ferguson? Surely not...) idea on Praxians being

No relation, as I told a lecture theatre full of Corconian, and thus likely MU-mad students today...

> between Animism and Theism is interesting, they worship giants after
> all, but I'm still getting my head round how animism works for them
> never mind having to blend two unfamiliar systems!

I sympathise! I was being deliberately vague here, and really, my main thought was on the lines of "if it feels good, do it". Theism is the most successfully-realized magic system in HW1, IMO, and if it proves easier to run the Praxians using concepts "borrowed" from theism I think there's a game-world basis for it, but I wouldn't get hung up on the details. (Indeed, the details are about to be "Gregged" anyway, as has been mentioned.)

> Doesn't everyone get three keywords, cultural, occupational and
> magical (he asked, wandering what heated exchange he'd raked over
> again?).

Yes, you're right. I was attempting to make a "sly dig" at the business of multiple occupation keywords or magical keywords, which is a bit of a murky area, but that'll larn me to dig more carefully. (Nothing worse than a smart-arse that doesn't even trouble to be right...)

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